Charadriiformes

Oystercatchers (Haematopodidae)

HBW 3, p. 308 Learn more about the Handbook of the Birds of the World - Volume 3 on the Lynx Edicions website.

• Medium-sized shorebirds, with black or black and white plumage, pinkish legs and a long, dagger-like orange-red bill.
• Cosmopolitan, but absent from polar regions and marginal in tropical parts of Africa and Asia.
• Mainly coastal, but also inland in Palearctic and New Zealand.
• 1 genus, 10 species, 16 taxa.
• 1 species threatened; 1 of these probably extinct since 1600.